2
Fourmage de laine
Porte une semaine
A la Saint Remi
& une quintaine
Couroit parmi Saine
Sor pet & demi
Li siecles parti parmi
Uns suirons sainiez de vaine
Leur dit Par l’ame de mi
J’ai repost un mui d’avaine
Dedenz le cul d’une fremi
7
En l’angle d’un con
La vi un taisson
Qui tissoit orfrois
& uns chapperon
Parmi Monloön
Menoit Vermendois
Je lord is en escoçois
Des coilles d’un papillon
Porroit on faire craz pois
& dou vit d’un limeçon
Faire chastiax & beffrois
9
Je vi une tour
Qui a un seul tour
Vola duqu’a nues
Si vi demi jour
Entrer en un four
Apres quatre grues
Se ne fussent deus maçues
Qui d’une arbaleste a tour
Orent deus nonnains foutues
Mortes fussent sanz retour
Quatre cotes descousues
13
Uns viellars mors nez
Qui avoit court nez
Portoit un molin
Uns chas bestornés
C’est bien atornés
De deus dras de lin
Plain possonnet de saïn
Les eüst touz estonnés
A l’entree d’un jardin
Qant uns ras i a menez
Les pez d’un viez Tartarin
14
Allie d’estrain
Formage de pain
& febes de pois
& kailleus de grain
& pierres de fain
& Escot françois
Un chas qui parloit grijois
Emportoit seignor Alain
Dont ce fu trop grans anois
Qant dui singe chastelain
Chevauchoient Vermendois
15
Un cendaus de laine
Estoit en grant paine
De corber un pois
Por sainier de vaine
Venoit Babiloine
Apenre françois
Encontre vint Vermendois
Qui hanissoit sans alaine
Sor un grant cheval d’orfrois
Par un jour hors de semaine
S’emfuient quatorze mois
16
Moustarde d’anete
Portoit Damiëte
Derier Occident
Uns vit de cherete
Batoit l’entrepete
Plain panier de vent
Un chas qui la lune vent
Saut avant & si culete
Dix fremis en un couvent
Si que Paris en volete
D’Acre duqu’en Occident
des Fatrasies d’Arras
Anonymous
These poems belong to a poetic genre that was short-lived, emerging first in the mid-thirteenth century as the fatrasie, and then taking on a second life in the early fourteenth century as the fatras. The two forms are sufficiently similar that they have traditionally been classed together as a single genre.
The fatrasie, like the fatras, combines a tightly knit poetic and logical (or grammatical) structure with wildly illogical content. The structure of the fatrasie prescribes eleven lines of verse, in two unseparated strophes, usually disconnected from each other in content. The first strophe has six lines, often giving the impression of two tercets. Each line has five syllables and the rhythm tends toward singsong. There are two rhymes for the entire poem, and in the sestet they are arranged sequentially: aab / aab. In the quintet that follows, the rhymes are crossed: babab. The quintet is made up of seven-syllable lines and there is a rhythmic disjuncture between the sestet and the quintet, the rhythm of the quintet being slower, less regular, subtler, and more complex.
The action of the fatrasie, as with that of the fatras, is above all “impossible,” and was identified as such at the time. The impossibilities are arranged around several axes, involving actors who generally have no human agency—objects or part objects, abstractions, animals—or persons acting outside of their usual range of activity or capability, and actions that are not possible in a world governed by rules of logic or law or physics. These actions may be obscene, anti-clerical, xenophobic, violent, blithering, uncanny, uproariously funny, or astonishingly beautiful, not in any particular order or distribution.
These poems have not been translated into English before. Because of this, we decided that our translations should not bend the content in order to render the complexity of the form. Our most important role was to give an adequate sense of the “meaning” of the poems. As a result, we have translated their superabundant wordplay only where this was possible without substitutions that harm the meaning or change the actual content. We have accepted assonance and consonance, double-meanings, homophonies, and sometimes even rhyme, when they have come to us, as poets, in our attempt to also provide enjoyable English language poetry.
The fatrasie, like the fatras, combines a tightly knit poetic and logical (or grammatical) structure with wildly illogical content. The structure of the fatrasie prescribes eleven lines of verse, in two unseparated strophes, usually disconnected from each other in content. The first strophe has six lines, often giving the impression of two tercets. Each line has five syllables and the rhythm tends toward singsong. There are two rhymes for the entire poem, and in the sestet they are arranged sequentially: aab / aab. In the quintet that follows, the rhymes are crossed: babab. The quintet is made up of seven-syllable lines and there is a rhythmic disjuncture between the sestet and the quintet, the rhythm of the quintet being slower, less regular, subtler, and more complex.
The action of the fatrasie, as with that of the fatras, is above all “impossible,” and was identified as such at the time. The impossibilities are arranged around several axes, involving actors who generally have no human agency—objects or part objects, abstractions, animals—or persons acting outside of their usual range of activity or capability, and actions that are not possible in a world governed by rules of logic or law or physics. These actions may be obscene, anti-clerical, xenophobic, violent, blithering, uncanny, uproariously funny, or astonishingly beautiful, not in any particular order or distribution.
These poems have not been translated into English before. Because of this, we decided that our translations should not bend the content in order to render the complexity of the form. Our most important role was to give an adequate sense of the “meaning” of the poems. As a result, we have translated their superabundant wordplay only where this was possible without substitutions that harm the meaning or change the actual content. We have accepted assonance and consonance, double-meanings, homophonies, and sometimes even rhyme, when they have come to us, as poets, in our attempt to also provide enjoyable English language poetry.
Anonymous is the unknown author of the Fatrasies d’Arras, which are fifty-five in number and, along with eleven poems written by Philippe de Remi, comprise the total corpus of the poetic genre known as the fatrasie. The Fatrasies d’Arras were undoubtedly written by a member, or members, of the nobility or haute bourgeoisie of Arras, which at the time was a wealthy merchant city. Although some scholars assume that these are unsigned works by a single author, our hunch, from working with these poems so closely for the last two years, is that they bear the fingerprints of several hands. It seems to us that they are game poems or puzzle poems of some kind. One poet may have provided some aspect of the finished poem—the rhyme words, for example, or the first six lines, or the paradoxes—and a second poet may have filled in the rest. In critical writing to come, we hope to present all the internal evidence we have of their multi-authorship, so that readers may decide for themselves.
Donato Mancini makes visual and procedural poetry, bookworks, and visual art. His books and chapbooks include Snowline (2015), Loitersack (2014), Buffet World (2011), Fact ‘N’ Value (2011), Hell Passport no. 22 (2008), Æthel (2007), 58 Free Coffees (2006), and Ligatures (2005). Notable exhibitions of his visual artworks have included exhibitions through Artspeak, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Western Front, Gallery Atsui, Malaspina Printmaker's Society, Open Space (Victoria), and CSA. His books have twice been nominated for the ReLit award in Canada. Same Diff, his most recent book, was a finalist for the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize. Having spent much of his life in Vancouver, Mancini is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ted Byrne was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and moved to Vancouver in the late 1960s. His earlier writing appeared in publications like Canadian Forum and the Fiddlehead, and he is the author of Aporia (1989) and Beautiful Lies (1995) and the co-editor of The Recovery of the Public World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser (1999). He was also a member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective for ten years. Byrne is working on various writing projects, including a sequel to his novel Beautiful Lies and a book of short poems. Byrne’s most recent book, Duets (2018), a collection of translations of Louise Labé and Guido Cavalcanti, is published by Talonbooks.
